Demetrious Johnson may make history at UFC 215, but don't expect it to change much

If all goes as expected at UFC 215 in Edmonton this Saturday night, UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson will make history with a record-breaking victory that cements his title reign as the most dominant the UFC has ever seen.

If you haven’t noticed, it means an awful lot to Johnson (26-2-1 MMA, 14-1-1 UFC) to get this win over flyweight title challenger Ray Borg (11-2 MMA, 5-2 UFC), thus shattering Anderson Silva’s record for consecutive UFC title defenses. The question is whether that record means much to anyone else, since at the moment Johnson seems to be tiptoeing up to greatness while no one’s looking.

When you consider how he got here, you have to admit that maybe that would be a fitting way for Johnson solidify his legacy.

For the past five years, Johnson has quietly made his case as the best fighter in MMA while fans remained mostly indifferent. He’s dominated opponents, cleaned out a division, and edged closer to overall perfection with every title defense, all while fans and media have busied themselves with the question of his missing popularity.

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No UFC champion is as consistently flawless as Johnson. Then again, no UFC champion has done so much in front of so few, headlining one poorly selling pay-per-view after another until UFC executives considered doing away with the division entirely.

His current situation is almost too perfect as a microcosm of his entire championship reign. After a tiff with management over the choice of opponent for this attempt at UFC history, he’s now headlining a low-wattage PPV with a fight that even UFC President Dana White has preemptively written off as a box-office loser.

Normally, a fight card with two title fights is a pretty big deal. But this time Johnson is paired with fellow pariah-of-the-moment Amanda Nunes, who’s also in the UFC’s doghouse for her late illness withdrawal at UFC 214. Whether it’s intentional or not, the combination of Johnson and Nunes makes this PPV feel like management’s way of making a certain point.

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Meanwhile, there’s Johnson plugging away, continuing his resolute march toward a record that refuses to feel like as big a deal as it ought to be. Regardless of weight class, 11 straight UFC title defenses would be a remarkable achievement, especially in a sport where there are so many ways to lose, ranging from bad judging to bad luck.

But with Johnson, it seems like everyone who’s going to care already does. Media members can tell you that he’s a martial arts genius, the UFC can press play on all those “pound-for-pound best” sound bites, but if you’re not on board yet, it seems unlikely that you’ll change your mind for his fight with 8-1 underdog Borg, regardless of what the record book says.

Not that any of this has ever seemed to matter much to Johnson. While he gets slightly annoyed at having to answer the same questions every time about why no one wants to watch him, he also seems to have no trouble compartmentalizing that aspect of the business. He treats MMA like a true sport, focusing on the competitive athletic aspects at the expense of all the other stuff. In other words, he treats it like what it’s not, and doesn’t seem to care when the needle remains thoroughly unmoved as a result.

All of which makes you wonder what it’s going to be like if and when he does break this record in front of a PPV audience of a couple hundred thousand. He’ll no doubt be thrilled. The UFC will at least go through the motions on the broadcast. Fans in attendance will clap politely.

After that? It’s hard not to feel like this will be a record filed away and forgotten about. It will be a career-defining moment for Johnson, not to mention a record that’s likely to stand for a very long time, but it’s probably not going to change anyone’s minds about him.

If you were paying any sort of attention, you already knew he was great. Either you cared or you didn’t, but how’s he supposed to sway you one way or another just by making his greatness more numerically official?

Johnson might be on the verge of making UFC history this weekend. If so, he’ll do it the same way he’s done everything else during his title reign: quietly, satisfying mostly himself, and without feeling the least bit bad about any of that.